"Papa and Walter are going over to the town," said Violet, unable to conceal her disappointment. "They are on some odious law business, and if I wait for their return it is quite likely I shall not have time to pack my trunk—so you will have to excuse me, Mrs. Valchester."
Ronald looked across at her from over the top of the book he was apparently reading. He saw that she was disappointed, though he had no idea of the reason. He did not dream that Violet loved him. He thought she was simply like other girls—weary of the monotony of country life, and longing for the gaiety of the city.
"If you will let me have a horse, Mrs. Earle," he said, "I will ride over to the town and hasten the truants back."
"You are not strong enough to bear horse-back exercise, otherwise I have no objection," replied Mrs. Earle.
"I am quite strong enough," protested Ronald. "You ladies are keeping me an invalid too long. A mile ride through this pleasant air would brace me up. I believe it would do me good."
"Perhaps it would be better to take the phaeton," suggested Violet, who saw therein a chance to accompany him.
But Ronald insisted that horse-back exercise would please him best, and the three ladies yielded the point and allowed him to have his own way.
It was very unwise of Ronald, perhaps, but his passionate hunger to see Jaquelina again had been mainly instrumental in sending him out that evening. The perfect silence everyone maintained regarding her, instead of cooling the fever of his heart added new fires to it. Although his peculiar views regarding divorce precluded the idea that they should ever be aught to each other again, he could not cease to love her.
"It is quite impossible I should ever cease to love her," he said to himself as he rode along under the interlacing boughs of the trees. "I long to see her again, to hear her voice, to touch her hand. And yet I know that I am unwise. But if they had talked to me about her, if they had even called her name I think I could have borne it better. The strange silence they keep maddens me with suspense. It is just as if my lost little Lina were dead."